Saturday, September 25, 2010

Yes boys and girls, I'm still alive! I arrived in the Motherland sana e salva and am living in my piccola casa. I apologize or the lengthy absence from the blog; it has been a busy coupla weeks.

I found that my house had been happily inhabited in my absence by a whole load of spiders who had apparently decided to take advantage of Italy's squatters' rights law and make the place their own. They didn't like my intrusion and have been reticent to leave. I've been insistent and their numbers are finally dwindling.

My temporary kitchen set-up is working pretty well and I was greeted with a jar of fig jam, a jar of honey, and two bottles of wine - all homemade by friends, who had also taken it upon themselves to provide milk, eggs, coffee and tomatoes from their garden. A much warmer welcome than I could have imagined!

We will eventually move the kitchen to the other side of the room and make it an old-world rustic type of cucina, but for now I can boil up the pasta and offer my neighbors a caffe without too much trouble.

Internet has been hooked up and I bought a router to give myself some wireless freedom. It took me the better part of two days to get that functioning properly; why technology hates me is still a mystery, but in the end I conquered the sucker and am surprised that the signal carries through the thick stone walls.

The stone mason returned to finish some plaster work in my bathroom and I've acquired another cantina, a long story I'll recount another time, but for those of you keeping count, we now own four (count 'em!) cantinas.

When not battling spiders and trying to organize the casa into some semblance of orderliness, I've been making countless trips to Potenza to hunt down things I need, hit the bancomat, fill the gas tank, and look for work. I've had a few writing projects I've been working on, and have made a couple trips to the other side of the hillside to visit la famiglia...so you see why I've not been around the Pinon Tree for a while!

Things are taking shape and I hope to post more regularly. Thanks for hanging around.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

You know how much I hate packing. I love to travel but I don't like the getting there part, and I definitely don't like the packing part. I fret about taking too much, taking too little, the possible weather fluctuations, the dressy-enough factor, the comfort factor - just don't like it!

This time around, I'm still fretting but I'm not minding it so much, because packing means...I'm getting the Dodge out of Hell and heading for home! That's right, next week at this time I'll be tucking myself into my own bed, in my own house in Lucanella. Can't. Wait. Non vedo l'ora!

No offense to you northern Viriginia readers, but this has not been the life for me. We went from traffic jams that were caused by sheep in the road to the Capital Beltway, and the adjustment just wasn't pretty. In fact, the adjustment just didn't happen. Too much culture shock for a small-town girl who wants to live in her village of 600 souls.

Besides, our bureaucrats beckon; our Italian paperwork needs to be renewed. The process is simple enough, just time consuming, so we'll be spending the remainder of the year in Basilicata. Bryan will be coming in a few weeks. I'll go get the house put together and start job hunting (because while it's nice to stay through the end of the year, it would be even better to just...stay!)

The pinon tree will be empty for a week or so while I'm in transition. This little baci bird is flying home to nest in Italy!